


thanks for the memories

by coffeesuperhero



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's traveling light, but he's got more to carry than he can bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thanks for the memories

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to Marvel Studios and various subsidiaries.  
>  **A/N:** If there are spoilers for the movie in this, I don't know about them, because so far (*fingers crossed*) I'm spoiler-free.

It should be raining. It's always raining in the damn movies when it comes to scenes like this one, but life has no will to imitate art today, and it's just as well: there's no tearful reunion at the end of this story, no swell of music, no title track that some up-and-coming young thing will perform at next year's round of awards ceremonies. The end of this is the same as the meaning of it, and it means nothing, so the sun can just keep on shining. 

Clint Barton boards the train at half past three with nothing but a bag and a guitar case containing an aging Martin acoustic. To any casual observer, he's traveling light, but he's got more to carry than he can bear, the weight of it all pushing him further back into the uncomfortable padding of the seat. 

He sucks in a breath just to prove to himself that he can, one small act of defiance against the emotional gravity that has been building over the last few days, holding him down, threatening to keep him grounded and for good, this time. 

He's bored. He's bored, and the only book he has is a well-worn copy of The Old Man and the Sea, a book he doesn't really even care for but the closest book he could grab on the way out of his apartment that didn't have memories attached that he doesn't want to carry with him, so he does what he always does: he makes up his own stories, inventing little details of life for the people on the train. 

After so many years of covert ops, he can't help but catalogue the other passengers as they shuffle aboard, mentally noting who's traveling for business, who's traveling for pleasure, and who's traveling because they don't have anything else at all to keep them from going out of their minds. He puts himself firmly in the latter category, but he's alone even in being alone: everyone else shakes out into the first two. He always goes a little further than just categorizing people, though, because that's no fun, and three minutes later he's constructed an elaborate backstory for the two ladies sitting in front of him. He knows how they met, he knows who proposed to whom and how, he knows what they like to dance to when they go out dancing-- and yes, they go out dancing-- and who puts her head on the other's shoulder, whose fingers are gripping a little tighter than the other's, who wants to stay and who wants to go. 

It's a sad story, but everybody's got one, and he's no exception. 

Phil-- no, _Agent Coulson_ , he corrects himself bitterly-- would be ranking them according to his own personal threat assessment scale. Coulson would already have it all figured out, and here he is, Clint Barton, world's greatest archer, Avenger and government operative, sitting on a train _making shit up_ , writing a love story for people he'll never meet, wondering if there's truth in any of it. 

Coulson wouldn't wonder; Coulson would just know. 

"You invent too many things," Coulson had said, the first op they ran together, five years and some heartbreak ago. "Keep it simple; stay alive."

Clint had laughed it off at the time, turned it into a running gag that they were still chuckling about just last week over discount sushi and cheap beer. 

"No, see, it's like I told you in New Mexico: they've got a story," he had insisted, pointing at a line of people at the bar. "Everybody does, Phil. Everybody's got a story to tell." 

"It's a shame more people aren't better storytellers, then." 

"Well, I do okay. Probably because I'm so _inventive_ ," Clint joked. 

Coulson just shook his head and carefully selected another piece of sushi with his chopsticks. "There are days, Barton, when I think you've got more inventions than Stark." 

"I really do," Clint mumbles, tapping the train window idly. They're moving now, and he's out of stories to tell. He tucks his headphones into his ears and turns the volume up, closing his eyes as Billy Joel sings him out of the city and away from the sad echoes of a life that had been a dream of someone else's invention, nothing real about it except the pain after its end. "But you know, Coulson, I never could have invented _you_." 

\+ 

The train goes all the way to New Orleans, but he hops off in Atlanta. He doesn't want to think about chicory coffee and beignets or the brush of Phil's fingers against his as they both reach for the last pastry. He won rock, paper, scissors, but he tore the damn thing in half anyway. 

"You won and you're sharing? It must be love," Phil had said, in that flat, matter-of-fact tone that Clint used to find so hard to read. 

"Must be," Clint affirmed, hiding a smile behind his half of the beignet. 

It was the first time either of them had brought it up, but he remembers thinking that it had been a long time coming. That still feels _real_ to him, too real to go back to the French Quarter anytime soon, too real to go back to any of the places where they were together. 

In Atlanta, no such memories await him, there's only the late summer heat and the promise of crowds and blessed anonymity, so he gets a room at a big hotel downtown and just fades into the business and noise of Peachtree Street. There's a bar down the street that brews its own beer, and he drinks maybe a little more than he should, but the bartender is kind and her smile is warm and for a moment he sees a glimpse of what life might be like if he could shrug off the weight of all the regret and the disappointment. The spell is broken when some drunk frat boy takes the mic for karaoke, dedicates a song to _the motherfucking Avengers, man_ , and the sweet taste of his drink goes sour. He leaves the bartender far more than he owes her, and the next morning, he hits the road. 

+

This may not be the feel-good romantic movie of the year, but it does rain, eventually. When it hits, he's in a rental car in Texas, cruising down I-40 with the windows rolled down, pushing one-twenty and speed limits be damned. On the radio, Stevie Ray Vaughan is swearing that he won't do the things he used to anymore, and Clint hits the button to roll up the windows and nods his head to the beat. 

"That's the damn truth," he says, and cranks the music up, the sound of blues guitar filling his ears as the rain pours down. 

It rained in New Mexico that night, too, but of course, that was Thor's fault, though he didn't know it at the time, while he waited with his bow high above the mud and the soldiers, watching a god try to reclaim his birthright. 

After it was all over, he waited for Phil. 

"So. You were rooting for the intruder," Coulson had said, just before he went down to speak to the prisoner.

Clint grinned and tugged at Coulson's tie, wrapping his fingers around the wet material. "I was, I really was. What can I say, baby, I love an underdog story." 

"You've really got a story for everyone, don't you?" 

"I really do," he admitted. "I'm an assassin, you think it's fun sitting somewhere for hours waiting on a target? Sometimes making up stories keeps me awake. And everybody's got a story, Phil." 

Coulson raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay. Tell me his and I'm all yours for the night." 

"Now, see, I may not know _his_ story, but I know this one, and that's a lie," Clint laughed, slowly disentangling his fingers from the tie. "You'd interrogate him even if you knew who he was." 

"You know how I feel about procedure," Coulson had acknowledged with a gentle lift of his shoulder. 

"Speaking of procedure, if you feel like debriefing me later," Clint said, pushing his hip against Coulson's, "you know where to find me." 

The kiss was brief, but hard and full of promise, and the memories of these stolen moments haunt him as he drives on into the night, the sting of that kiss still on his lips.

Somewhere outside Amarillo, he sees a sign for Albequerque and quietly changes lanes, turning the car north toward Colorado, away from New Mexico and thoughts of wet clothes and warm skin. 

There's need to go back. He's not chasing the past. If anything, it's chasing him. 

+

It's not just the sex that he misses, though there are plenty of nights when he lies awake, panting and sweaty, Phil's name on his lips, fantasies that used to be real looping over and over in his head. It isn't the same, but if all he wanted was just a quick fuck, well, sex is easy enough to replace: he's got a collection of phone numbers from long nights in seedy bars to prove it. 

He never calls any of them. They don't have what he wants; they can't compete with his memories. 

What he wants, what he craves, is the thrill of being _known_. 

It was terrifying to realize that he wanted that in the first place, and now he has to live with the knowledge that it was all a lie. 

\+ 

He dreams, or more accurately, he has nightmares that are really memories, replacing the reality that was actually nothing but a trick of the light, Loki's latest sleight of hand. 

They're standing in Fury's office. He's got one careful eye on Banner, because when someone delivers this kind of bad news, it's always wise to have an eye on Banner, just in case. What he's not doing is thinking about how this affects him personally. For half of the conversation, he's not even considering it, because of course he knows what's real and what's not, and this thing with Phil, this is _real_. 

It must be love. It has to be. But it isn't. 

He looks at Phil, finally, desperately wanting to ignore the truth, to hold onto hope, but Phil isn't looking back. Phil is looking at their hands, the way that they're standing, only a whisper of air between their fingers. They always stand this way: Clint remembers countless briefings, standing just like this, nothing to it.

There's nothing to it, because none of it ever happened. 

Clint knows the precise second they come back to reality, the moment all the false memories suddenly have a mocking green tinge to them, because that is the horrible moment that Phil takes half a step away from him; that is the moment he moves his hand away from Phil's, crosses his arms over his chest, and looks in the other direction. 

Fury's still talking, but nothing Clint has ever trained for has prepared him to stand here and listen while someone tells him that the most important thing in his life is a lie. He would walk out, but his feet won't respond. He watches the others take it all in, catches snippets of angry words from the rest of the team. He wonders what tricks Loki had for them, what fleeting shadows they thought they loved. From the look on Steve's face as he watches Tony, Clint has a pretty good guess. Even Thor seems shaken, his eyes dark and haunted. 

Knowing Loki and his malicious sense of humor, they'll probably get a card tomorrow: _Happy Valentine's Day, Avengers, hope you enjoyed my gift,_ signed: Loki Laufeyson, God of Cheap Tricks. 

"Thanks for the memories, asshole," he mutters, and Fury glares at him. 

"Something you'd like to share with the class, Barton?" 

"No, sir," he says quietly, redirecting his gaze momentarily to the floor just in front of Fury's desk. He'd look anywhere as long as it wasn't at Phil. He can't, not yet. 

They don't know why and they don't know how, they just know that twenty-four hours before, something happened that left them all with a host of memories that feel achingly real but are nothing more than the newest item from Loki's bag of tricks. 

Fury tells them they're all required to meet with S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrists before they're cleared for field work. He knows this will be difficult for them, but it's nothing they can't handle, it's nothing they aren't prepared for as members of the Avengers Initiative.

Privately, Clint feels like it would have been fine if Fury had just said, "It's nothing," because apparently, that's all it was. The sum of all these memories is absolute fucking zero, and all he wants is a long run and a cold drink, somewhere far, far from headquarters. 

He'll get his wish, he just hasn't made it happen yet. 

He wakes up in a bed at some cheap motel in the middle of nowhere and stares at the clock, wishing it had all been a nightmare, knowing that it wasn't, knowing that what came after was infinitely worse than those awful moments in Fury's office. 

He tries to find sleep again, but it eludes him. After two hours of restless self-pity, he gets up, throws his dirty laundry in his bag, and heads back out on the road. 

\+ 

He only hears about the latest attack by accident. He's in a diner in Arizona, a plate of pancakes in front of him, when one of the regulars asks the waitress to change the channel on the ancient television tucked into the corner above the bar. The screen slowly resolves itself into images of New York, and he can see Nat with Stark and Banner, facing down some new terror. Thor's hammer flies in from offscreen, and then there's Rogers, of course, being a goddamn hero, stepping in front of Stark even though he knows that Tony can take a hit. "Sorry," he shouts, and Clint can't see Stark's face in the suit, but he's gotta be rolling his eyes.

Phil-- no, _Coulson_ \-- won't be on this footage, because that's the way it always is, but even so his heart squeezes in his chest and his hand reaches automatically for a cell phone that he left in New York along with the rest of his life. 

He knows which memories are real and which are not, but he knows what he feels when he thinks about his old partner, he knows that the only thing Loki's little game did for him was force him to acknowledge what he already knew. 

It must be love. 

He had tried to keep it to himself, tried to ignore it, wait for it to go away, but the day after his last mandatory visit to his S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist, it had all shot right out of his mouth like an arrow from his bow, and of course, of course, it had found the appropriate target. 

He had gone to Coulson's office for a perfectly innocuous reason: he had very real memories of the two of them sharing a drink after successful missions, and all he had intended when he walked into the office was to resume a life that was like the one he had before Loki had interfered. 

"I got the paperwork from your shrink," Coulson had told him by way of greeting, holding up a file. "You're clear." 

"Yeah, I heard," Clint replied. "That's why I'm here. We used to-- I mean, when we were partners, we'd grab a beer, right? When things went the way they were supposed to, which I admit was rarer than we would have liked, but I'm asking, you want to drown under all that paperwork, or you want to have a drink with me?" 

Coulson looked at him with an expression Clint recognized as thoughtfully calculating. "Do you think that's the wisest course of action for us right now?" 

"I just want things to go back to the way they were," Clint said, but it sounded more like a plea than a request, and he could tell that Coulson had heard every word he hadn't said. 

"It was a dream, Barton," Coulson said, crisp, businesslike, official, like he was approving a requistion instead of breaking Clint's heart. 

"I know, Phil," Clint insisted, but Coulson didn't even look up from his paperwork, and that was pretty much when it all went south.

"I know this will take some adjustment, and if you feel you need more time--"

His hand was on Phil's before he could stop it, but once it was there, he committed to it, he committed to _wanting this_ , for real this time, and left it. "I know it was a dream, but I'm trying to tell you that I think maybe it was _my_ dream." Coulson's hand moved away from his immediately. "I guess it wasn't yours. My mistake." 

"Barton, we're colleagues," Coulson had said, his face tight and unreadable. 

"Right," Clint said, shoving his hands into his pockets before they did any further damage. "Absolutely. See you around." 

He had resisted the urge to go home and drink excessively while listening to "You Give Love a Bad Name," on continuous repeat. Instead he'd gone home, thrown some essentials in a bag, grabbed his guitar, and left. 

On the television, some reporter is interviewing Stark, and Clint asks the waitress if she's got a box for his food. 

\+ 

The guitar isn't particularly useful, but it does pass the time, and the taut strings under his fingers remind him of drawing his bow. He'd write a song about his troubles, but the truth is, though music can be as pointed as an arrow in the right hands, his only talent with a guitar is playing mediocre covers and annoying his co-workers. Stark used to beg Banner to put his abilities to good use and destroy the guitar for the reasons of boosting team morale, and he has it on good authority that Rogers stopped Stark more than once from "accidentally" crushing it while Clint was on the range. Lately, though, his audience has been more welcoming: the birds in the park where he's been playing particularly enjoy his acoustic version of Rihanna's "Umbrella." 

Apart from the real memories of irritating the team and the junior agents, in his other life he never got around to playing for Coulson, and every time he sits and plays, he's grateful for that small mercy. 

He's halfway through a soulful bluesy take on some Simon & Garfunkel tune when he knows that they've found him, or specifically, Nat has found him. He doesn't have to see her to know that she's there, and he ad libs a line with her name in it, just to say hello. 

"You're an idiot," she says, dropping down next to him on the park bench. 

"Good to see you, too, _Natashka_ ," he replies. He strums a minor chord, and she rolls her eyes.

"Don't call me that," she says, but there's no venom in it: there rarely is, when it's him. For a woman with her code name, he's always found that a little odd, but he's never told her so: he knows exactly how long the bruises would last. 

"Won't be fooled by the training that you got, you're still Natasha from the block, babe," he half-sings at her, unexpectedly playful, but then, they had some good times, and those memories, at least, are quite real.

She's just staring back like she's trying to decide if it would be worth the effort to garotte him with a guitar string, and he can't help but laugh, just a little. 

"A little trained assassin humor plus bonus pop culture reference? C'mon, Nat, give me some credit, that was funny." He drums a quick beat on the side of the guitar. "You know, I don't think I've smiled since the last time I saw you." 

"And I think you know that I don't like to repeat myself, so listen carefully this time: Barton, you're an idiot." 

He sighs. "Yeah, but for what, this time?" 

"We all have these memories, Clint," Natasha says. Her hand reaches for his, but halfway through the motion, she stops. "Some of us are dealing with them better than others." 

"They were more than just memories for me," he says quietly, his fingers gripping the neck of the guitar, playing an inaudible melody. "He knows more of me than any person alive, and he doesn't want fuck-all to do with me. This...the Director was wrong. This was _nothing_ we ever trained for, Nat. This was personal." 

"We need you to come back in," she says, and he just laughs. 

"That was your plan?" 

"You don't just walk out on this initiative. You knew that when you left. One way or another, you'll come back," Natasha sighs. "I asked them to give you the option to do it on your own." 

He stares out across the park for a long time before answering. "If I wanted to run, really run, would you help me?" 

"No," she says, and he looks over at her, genuinely surprised. "But only because you don't have anything to run from, Barton, you just don't know it yet." 

+

Natasha leaves twelve hours later, as quietly and as quickly as she appears, vanishing from a crowded restaurant by the bay. He finishes the rest of her drink and orders another round before he stumbles home, turning her words over in his head until he passes out on the beatup old couch he calls a bed. 

+

Three weeks later, Clint wakes up moderately hungover after a late night at a piano bar around the corner from his apartment, vague recollections swirling through his alcohol-addled brain, memories of singing duets with the regular piano player, or possibly taking over for the regular piano player, he really isn't certain. Someone hands him a glass of water, and he takes it, grateful that he doesn't have to haul himself off the couch just yet.

He's so lost in trying to reconstruct the events of the previous evening that he barely even registers that it's Phil Coulson who has handed him a glass of water, Phil Coulson who is standing in his very untidy living room wearing his typical crisply pressed Dolce & Gabbana and looking damn good while doing it, and fuck him for that, a sentiment Clint does not realize he's expressed aloud until Phil raises a curious eyebrow at him and then looks down to survey his suit. 

"That's hurtful, Barton," he says, running a hand down his lapel to the top button of his jacket. "This is a new suit." 

"I'm just saying, a guy breaks your heart and then shows up unannounced at your place, he could at least have the decency to turn up looking worse than you do," Clint explains. He drains the water glass and looks back at Coulson, who now looks vaguely concerned.

"I can't possibly have done that," Coulson says, and he sounds confident, but his eyes are worried. 

"How the hell do you think I felt? It wasn't easy to admit that I wanted it to be real," Clint snaps. He's on his feet, now, reluctantly, but he's goddamn tired of feeling like Coulson always has the upper hand in these conversations, even when it's Coulson who's sitting down. "You made it pretty damn clear that the whole thing was a nightmare for you." 

"Best nightmare I've ever had," Coulson replies, and Clint has to sit down again from the shock of it. 

"What, seriously?" 

"There are things I'm good at, Barton, and then there's this," Coulson says, shrugging his shoulders. He sits down carefully on the edge of the couch. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at this sort of thing." 

"Are you kidding? Partner, I hate to break this to you, but you suck." 

Coulson inclines his head and smiles. "I don't disagree. I do want to be sure that you know that I regret the way things have gone so far, though." 

Clint rubs his forehead with his hand. "This is how you're apologizing?" 

"No. It's not really an apology, it's more of a notification. I just thought you should know, if this... if we're pursuing this, that it's not a skill set I currently possess. I am, however, willing to work on it, and I can assure you that I'm every bit as determined as you remember." 

"Oh, I remember," Clint tells him. He fidgets absently with the hem of his shirt. "Memories are pretty much all I've got." 

"I know," Coulson says, his tone simple and efficient, but there's something underneath it that Clint can't quite place. "I'm offering you the chance to have something more than that, if you want it." 

He thinks of Natasha, then, and smiles. "I didn't really have anything to run from in the first place, did I?" 

"No," Coulson says, shifting sideways, just so, leaving that familiar whisper of space between their knees. "I admit I didn't give you much reason to doubt that, but as previously stated, I'm-- well, I think you might call me the underdog of this particular story, Barton." 

Clint laughs, then, the genuine article, no more forced smiles or half-hearted chuckles. "I do love an underdog." 

"I thought so. I told Director Fury that it might take some time to convince you," Coulson says, checking his watch. He stands up, brushing off his trousers, and gestures toward the door. "We have five days to get back to headquarters. We can always take a plane, but I thought you might be interested in one more roadtrip?" 

"Oh yeah? Where to?" 

Coulson shrugs. "I thought... New Mexico, maybe New Orleans." 

"Reliving old memories, huh," Clint says, an unexpected tightness in his chest at the idea. 

"Actually, I think it's time we made some of our own," Coulson says, and at that, Clint's pretty sure he's grinning like a fool, but he hardly cares, hell, even Coulson-- _Phil_ , he thinks, resolutely-- is smiling. He grabs his bag and his guitar and they're gone. 

Much later, they park the car at one of those scenic overlooks on the highway and watch the sun set, their fingers brushing together as they lean against the back bumper. It's pretty damn Hollywood, honestly, so much so that Clint considers breaking out the guitar and playing some ridiculous, over the top love song, just to be a real asshole about it. He doesn't, because miracle of miracles, Phil Coulson is actually _holding his hand_ right now, and there will be plenty of time to act like a fool about it later. For the moment he just wants to enjoy this, to let the reality of it all sink in, to actually live every second of this, because this feels real in a way that all of the other things never did. This feels like they worked for it.

"Next time we meet up with Loki, remind me to thank him for the memories," Clint says. 

"Of course. We could send him a thank-you card," Phil deadpans. "Should we send a gift, too, you think? What do you get the god who has everything? I suppose we could ask Thor, although--" 

"You're an asshole, Phil Coulson," Clint interrupts, but he's smiling as he says it. 

"You're the guy who's in love with me," Phil reminds him. "What does that make you?" 

"Pretty fucking happy." 

Phil looks over at him, his expression serious. "If everyone has a story, I'm glad you're in mine." 

"So am I," Clint says, squeezing Phil's hand. "So am I."


End file.
